Three and Seven
by freeze1
Summary: Toby, CJ and Sam get caught in a storm and wind up snowed in. Cue a sleepy Sam, wet CJ, thoroughly annoyed Toby, and lots of football. Set during the first campaign.


A/N: I never write West Wing, this was my first attempt, and as it was for a ficathon it wasn't even a half-way decent attempt, but there you go. I attempted to get Toby characterized correctly, which is only really possible if you're incredibly insynch with him. Which, of course, I am not. Sam was easier for me, for some reason, I don't know. I love Toby's complexity, but I feel like I can't quite be as complex as he is. shrug Anyways, I hope this is at least somewhat interesting.

Disclaimer: The West Wing is property of Aaron Sorkin and John Wells, not me.

Three and Seven

Toby is not angry. There is no logic in anger, in an open gesture of contempt that would only serve to unnerve his colleagues. Anger is below him. He certainly deserves _some_ sort of release of frustration after a two-hour drive on icy roads followed by a minor car-crash, a dented bumper and a forced visit to a miniature hotel whose employees can't seem to comprehend why anyone would want a room heated to seventy degrees Fahrenheit. He has every right to be angry. In fact, he has every right to yell profanities at the hotel management and smash his fist through the lamp shaped like a smiling deer.

Yet, he is doing none of those things. Thinking about them, fine, but not doing them. Unless, of course, the lamp continues staring at him, in which case he takes no responsibility for his actions.

"I love this state," CJ says warmly, sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds, "it's so cute. Did you see the deer lamp?"

Toby pretends he didn't heard her, crossing a "t" on his paper with unwarranted force. CJ, oblivious to his…_lack_ of anger, snuggles further into the bathrobe she exchanged for a snow-drenched skirt and begins fiddling with the channels on the television. Sam, who used the entire car ride to bemoan a throbbing pain in his side and hastily confirm that it was "no big deal", lies in the other bed buried beneath layers of blankets. Only a corner of his yellow notepad is visible.

Since there are no more beds, Toby sits on a wooden chair between them. He finds it astounding that he hasn't already murdered someone.

"Well, at least we have confirmation that it's warm _somewhere_ in the world," CJ drawls after a moment. "Although, I am a little confused as to why there are four channels here carrying football and only one with the news."

Toby looks up from the speech, frowning. "Invesco."

CJ raises an eyebrow. "Gazoontite?"

"Invesco field," Toby explains, idly scratching his beard and focusing again on the virtually indecipherable speech that lies strewn across his lap. "It's a Broncos game."

CJ giggles. "You know the names of the stadium? Not only that, you can tell which stadium it is simply by looking at the screen?"

"Actually, I looked at the scoreboard in the corner, but that's fine. Switch the channel." Toby crosses out the third "inherently" he sees in one paragraph. He reminds himself never to let Sam write speeches from the backseat of his Dodge. A few grumbles, a few clicks, and the silence is broken again.

"Oh, wow, I didn't know they played in the snow!"

"It might interest you to know that some people other than Vikings go outdoors in winter."

"This coming from the man who spent the last two hours retelling the story of the boy who died in a snowdrift," CJ laughs. It would be a pleasant noise, were Toby not so irritated. Not angry, mind. Simply…irritated.

"He was six. Just started kindergarten. His mom said he was…"

"…a promising clarinet player, I know," CJ scowls, throwing the remote to the foot of the bed. "You're a horrible man, Tobus."

Toby changes another "their" to "there" in hasty, scribbled strokes. He feels inclined to mention to Sam that a prerequisite to working so closely with a Presidential candidate is generally fourth grade grammar skills, but he leaves it alone. It is quite likely he had committed the offense himself, anyway.

The snow continues to fall outside, obstructing the nearby trees from view. At this rate, the Governor will surely have returned to his farm and everyone else will have tucked themselves into hotel beds without worrying about having to kick Sam out, first.

Not only is Toby not angry, he also is not _bitter_.

"Ah!" CJ yelps, clutching the covers tightly.

Toby glances up, apprehensive. "What?"

"I don't understand how men can play this game!" She exclaims, gesturing towards the television which now displays a fallen Patriots player awaiting medical assistance. "No, more importantly, I don't understand why men would _want_ to play this game! Does testosterone serve no other purpose than to aid men in their own demise?"

Toby pauses. "Well, it's often the force behind our skills with household appliances."

Sam, who has been completely motionless for a full fifteen minutes – Toby has wondered whether or not to wake him, deciding that he is more useful sleeping in his own drool than attempting to work on a speech – sits up abruptly.

"Phlegmatic!" He squeaks, then frowns as if wondering how his voice could journey twenty years into the past in a mere fifteen minutes.

"Excuse you?"

"No, no, I mean…'phlegmatic'. It's a word." Sam shakes his head, takes a deep breath and bends down to search for his notepad, nearly strangling himself with his tie in the process.

"Well thank you, Sam, I wasn't aware."

"No!" Sam says again, finally managing to dislodge himself from the tie and sliding forward onto his stomach so that his head is in line with Toby's. "I mean, we should use it instead of impassive."

"Why can't we use impassive?" CJ wonders, eyes still glued to the screen.

"We used impractical in the sentence before." Pause. A look. "What? They sound alike!"

Toby slowly runs one finger from his forehead to his chin and tries very hard to resist the urge to push Sam off the bed. "According to the third paragraph, a Bartlet Presidency is prepared to announce _France_ as the most active terrorist nation. Why are you wasting my time?"

"…My bad," Sam mutters. "But, still, you've always said that every word counts. Why can't we use phlegmatic?"

Toby lets the speech on his lap slide to the floor. "There are two reasons, Sam. Number one is that I frankly do not like you, do not want to listen to you, and am seriously considering burying you in a snowdrift before we leave this god-forsaken state."

"And such a promising clarinet player, too!" CJ sings.

Sam's eyes widen, and he juts his lower lip out ever so slightly in an effective pout, if pouts work on Toby. Which, of course, they do not.

"Reason number two is the Governor finds it funny."

Sam makes a face. "He finds it…funny?"

"Phlegmatic. He finds the word funny. You know what he does when he finds a word funny, Sam?"

Sam squeezes his eyes shut, and were Toby a more sympathetic person, he would feel a bit sorry for the obviously sleep-deprived younger man. "He laughs?"

"Correct."

"And it's…_bad_ when the President laughs during a speech, right?"

"He's not the President." The words come out faster than he had intended, and for a brief moment he actually _does_ feel some small speck of remorse for causing wrinkles of distress to appear on Sam's face. The moment does not last long. The sound of the television eclipses the room.

CJ speaks first. "You know Toby, you're a bit of a scrooge."

Silence. "…a what?"

She flashes a smug grin. "Well you know, "scrooge" sounds more festive than "ass"."

"He will be President someday," Sam interjects, pounding his fist into the bed in accentuation. Sam, Toby muses, is idealistic to a fault. He leans back in the chair, and it prods him painfully in the lower back. God damn New Hampshire.

"How do you know that?"

"Err…"

"How do you know for _sure_ that he will be President someday?"

Sam opens his mouth to speak and promptly closes it again, looking rather appalled at being asked to explain his reasoning. "Because," is his eloquent answer.

"Oh, God," CJ murmurs from the bed, "when the Governor gets elected, it's going to be like this all the time, isn't it! We're going to be spending every waking moment together."

"If! _If_ the Governor gets elected!" Toby stresses.

They ignore him.

"Well, it actually doesn't snow quite as much in DC," Sam adds thoughtfully, twisting himself into a bit of a pretzel on the bed so that he can face CJ. "So, chances are, _this_ will never happen again."

"Thank God," Toby mutters. CJ nods emphatically, the first issue they had agreed upon in days. Or, to be fair, perhaps it was a few hours since he sent his already beat-up Dodge Dart colliding into a telephone poll. It feels like longer.

"You're right, though," Sam murmurs, resting his chin on his hands. Strands of dark, wet hair fall into his eyes, and he brushes them away sloppily. "This is what it's going to be like for the next eight years."

"Four years," CJ corrects.

"No years!" Toby shouts at the same time, thoroughly exasperated. "In order for there to be years, he must first be elected! And, since he has not yet been elected, there will be no years!"

When he looks up, CJ is smiling at him shyly. The look on her face is a mix of motherly compassion and sisterly annoyance, and he briefly muses that she can see right through him. On his other side, there is a rustling of covers and Sam slowly slides up, attempting to physically shake the sleep from his eyes.

"You're watching football?" He questions, blinking heavily and grasping the bed for support. His dress shirt is stained with drool just below the collar. Despite what others may say, Toby does not find it endearing. Nope.

CJ nods. "Want to watch with me? I don't really get what's going on, anyway…"

"Do you get anything?"

"I get that there are men. With spandex. And a ball that is, apparently, made out of pigskin. That's about it."

"…Okay." He glances at Toby, and then stands, crossing the small hotel room to the CJ's bed and sitting timidly on the side. Toby notices that his socks are two different shades of black.

"Toby." It's not a question, but he knows what she is asking. He stares at the screen, and even then he can see the reflection of that goddamn deer staring at him through the glass.

"Third and seven on the forty yard line," he explains, leaning back in the chair once again.

"What on earth does that mean?" CJ laughs, scooting over and pulling Sam all the way onto the bed.

"They have a long way to go," Sam says, his tone almost wistful. "But, it's not impossible."

The speech lies beneath his chair, white papers turned black from excessive editing, and he thinks about declining the offer, about locking himself up somewhere and finishing it. He's relatively surprised to find that he doesn't particularly want to. He might as well take advantage of this moment, brief as he is sure it will be, before the eventual state of not being angry returns.


End file.
